Tax Return Documentation — Individual (questionnaire template)

A tax return documentation questionnaire is often a game-changer for accountants working with lots of individual clients. 

As soon as you create a template, you’ll simplify data collection and save precious time for the actual work during the busy season. In this post, we’ll walk through the steps to design a respondent-friendly questionnaire for individual taxpayers.

Let’s get started!

30+ questions to add to your tax return documentation form template

Before we list the questions, it’s important to note that tax return requirements vary — sometimes even drastically — from one country to another. Our questions are aimed at Australian taxpayers, but we also have ready-made templates for the UK and the US. 

You can access all of these questionnaires for free through Content Snare’s library of templates. 

Note: We’ve included screenshots from our built-in questionnaire template to show you what it looks like in practice.

General information

It’s important to keep your records up to date. These questions focus on the most recent information about your client, so you can accurately communicate with the ATO.

1. Full name

2. Residential address

3. Phone

4. Email

5. Date of birth

6. Bank account details

Note: For possible ATO refund

7. Account name

8. BSB

9. Account number

ATO pre-filling report

In this section, you’ll ask the client to download and review the ATO pre-filling report for the financial year. If everything is correct, your client will only need to provide a few more details about their income and expense records.

10. Is this ATO pre-filling report complete and correct?

Answers: Yes or No

Income

11. Do you have any employment income that is NOT included on your ATO pre-filling report?

If yes, please provide details and upload the supporting documentation. 

12. Have you carried on a business as a "Sole Trader" during the year?

Answers: Yes or No

13. Kindly provide supporting documentation or a summary of your business income and expenses for the financial year.

14. Do you have a bank account dedicated to your business?

Note: Obtaining these statements allows us to correctly classify all income and expenses.

Answers: Yes or No

15. Kindly upload copies of all bank statements and credit card statements (if applicable) for the full financial year. 

Note: They should show the balance on June 30.

Investment income

These questions focus on possible investment income during the previous financial year. Bear in mind that this section doesn’t require documents or information that has already been provided via the ATO pre-filling report.

16. Have you received any income from the following sources that is NOT included in your ATO pre-filling report?

Possible answers: Interest income, Dividend income, Trust distribution (managed investment funds), Rental income, Capital gains/losses (including cryptocurrency), or No investment income

17. Please provide details of the interest received.

That includes the bank name, amount, and your share percentage.

18. Please upload a PDF copy of your interest income.

19. Please provide details of the dividends received.

That includes the company name, date received, amount received, and your share percentage.

20. Please upload your dividend statements.

21. Please provide details of the managed investments fund distributions received for the year.

22. Please upload the Annual Tax Statements issued for your managed investment funds distributions (which breaks down the reporting categories of the income received for tax purposes).

23. Please list details of all of your rental properties.

24. For how many weeks was each of your properties available for rent?

25. Please upload documents related to rental property.

26. Please indicate what type of asset was disposed of during the year.

27. Please provide the purchase and sale documents to calculate the capital gain or loss for these assets. 

28. Kindly provide any additional comments or notes that may help us in the completion of your income tax returns for the year.

Deductions

29. Do you use your car for work-related purposes, or for travel between employers?

Answers: Yes or No

30. Please provide details of the car (make and model) and the number of business KMs traveled. 

31. Have you incurred any work-related travel expenses for the year?

That includes costs such as parking, taxi, public transport, airfares, accommodation, etc.

32. Please upload documents of work-related travel expenses.

33. Did you work from home during the year?

Answers: Yes or No

Note: You can claim a deduction of 80 cents for each hour worked from home during the year.

34. Please provide details of the hours worked from home.

That includes hours per week and weeks per year. 

Other information

35. Did you have private health insurance coverage for the full year?

36. Please advise if your private health details are stated correctly on your ATO pre-filling report.

Note: Health funds no longer provide the Annual Tax Statements automatically.

37. Please upload the details of your health fund for the year.

Use Content Snare to send your first questionnaire within minutes

Content Snare is an online form-building system with advanced client portal functionalities. It features a ready-made (but fully customisable) tax return documentation questionnaire, which means you can send your first request to your clients in a matter of minutes. 

Related: How Incra Group automated its tax return process using Content Snare

Our questionnaire templates are tailored specifically to accountants and tax professionals who want to get rid of the admin burden. However, built-in templates are far from being the only benefits of using Content Snare. You can also count on:

• Automated reminders for clients who aren’t agile enough to respond

• In-form instructions and conversations for frictionless client communication

• File size limits that go up to 16GB per document

• Effortless data exports and third-party integrations

• Multiple security layers to protect both you and your clients

Thanks to all these features, Content Snare users find it easy to transform their onboarding process and collect client info. One of our clients perfectly explained what they got from Content Snare:

If you also want to drastically simplify tax returns, make sure to sign up for a 14-day free trial.